Tuesday, November 27, 2012

As I sit here typing on my computer, it’s easy to get
overwhelmed by the wealth of knowledge and benefits science has brought
us.In fact, it’s so easy that we have
to a great extent forgotten the appalling depths of our ignorance.

How can I say that?Very simple: the quantity of unknowns in the universe is by definition
unknowable.This gives us Layne’s First
Law of General Ignorance: We don’t know
how much we don’t know.If we know,
then, that the extent of our ignorance is unknowable, we know that at least one
thing is unknowable.But we don’t know
if there’s anything else that Man cannot comprehend or will not be able to
comprehend at some future date.Therefore, the corollary to the First Law: We don’t know how much we can’t
know.

Got a headache yet?

Most thought systems have to start with at least some
assumptions that neither need nor admit of proof.For instance, you can’t get anywhere in plane
geometry if you don’t accept that “a line is the shortest distance between two
points”, or in algebra if a2 =
b2 + c2 is merely an opinion.Likewise, reason has a fundamental assumption
that “a thing cannot both be and not-be at the same time and in the same
manner”.

Why can’t we take atheism as self-evidential?This seems to be the answer the New Atheist
prefers, given that philosophers since Socrates have known that it’s impossible
to prove that something does not
exist.In law, we take it as a necessary
presumption of justice that a person accused of a crime is innocent until
proven guilty.Are there not situations
in which we can safely presume that a theory is false until proven true?

Monday, November 26, 2012

Liturgically, the Christmas season is still five weeks and
change away; we’re not even into Advent yet.Alas, we’re governed by the marketing calendar, which begins to push us
to buy for one holiday before the previous holiday is spent.The leaves down here in north-central Texas
just turned to fall colors yesterday, and the Muzak is already cranking out
“Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”

This is also the time of year when American Atheists begin
grunting out steaming mounds of “Bah! Humbug!” on the seemingly forgotten
religious aspect of the season.

I’ve written before on some of the problems the atheist must
overcome before he can truly claim his position is rational, let alone based on
scientific fact.Largely the problems
are philosophical in nature; the error lies not in the structure of the
argument but in the initial assumptions.Ultimately, if your foundation is nothing but sand, it doesn’t matter
how well you build the superstructure — it will fall, and great will be the
fall of it (cf. Mt 7:26-27).

But the New Atheist is, for the most part, not a
philosopher.In fact, more often than
not he rejects formal philosophy, as it seemingly consists of people
speculating without adequate basis in verifiable fact; as one person put it to
me, it’s “just a bunch of people’s subjective opinions”.That this demand for verifiable fact is
itself a philosophical position — logical positivism —
and as such suffers from self-referential incoherence[1]
is an irony that passes him by.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

I’ve already passed along this story on The ImpracticalCatholic.But there’s another topic it
fits, and “waste not, want not”:

The British Airways flight had just landed at Orly[1]
and pulled up to the terminal. Amidst the usual arrival bustle, an aged
British gentleman was searching his carry-on bag for his passport.

A fellow passenger, a stern French woman, noticed
his search, and asked, “Have you been to France before?”

The man, still searching, quietly replied, “I
have.”

“Well, then,” the woman sniffed with
stereotypical Gallic hauteur, “you should know to have your passport out and
waiting, sir.”

“The last time I was here,” the Brit shrugged, “I
didn't have to show my passport.”

“Impossible!” the woman snapped. “You
British have always had to show your passports to come in to France!”

Whereupon the Englishman stopped his search,
stepped close to the lady, and whispered to her, “Well, when I landed on the
beach in Normandy in June of 1944, I couldn’t find any f***ing Frenchman to
show it to!”

Richard Collins of Linen on the Hedgerow said I’d “lightened
Remembrance Sunday” for him.For my
American readers, Remembrance Sunday, observed the second Sunday of November,
is in some ways a more solemn event than our Veteran’s Day.Throughout the United Kingdom red poppies, in
wreaths and baskets and single flowers, decorate every monument and marker
raised to those who died in the two great world wars (and by extension all who
died for King/Queen and Country).The
red poppy recalls the poem “In
Flanders Field” by Col. John McCrae.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

… I tremble
for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep
forever ….

—Thomas
Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
(1782)

First published in 1969 ... coincidence?

Oddly enough, the sun came up Tuesday morning, and shone on
a nation that hadn’t been blasted into oblivion by a wrath-ridden God.Of course, Christ’s sacrifice changed the
nature of our relationship to God, so we just can’t count on the unrighteous to
get a good smiting, no matter how desperately they need it.

Yes, yes, I’m kidding.To be sure, I did my share of moaning and kvetching (and drinking) Tuesday
night.But I wasn’t at the point of some
of my Catholic blogger brethren, who were moaning that America is dead — done, finis, that’s a wrap folks.Perhaps Karl Marx’s dead hand is leading us
to the materialist workers’ paradise of the USSA, where the only purpose in
human life is to work, party and screw, but we’re not there yet.

I really have no desire to engage in the usual “Monday morning
quarterbacking” that traditionally follows an election.Theories as to how and why Mitt Romney won’t
be taking office this next January will be as abundant and variegated as a
field of flowers, and many if not most of them will be true to various extents.Perhaps the dissection will bear fruit
someday … just probably not in 2016, when different candidates and different
hot-button issues will obtain.

But as I was standing in line at a local Baptist church
waiting to cast my ballot, I noticed a display stand the members had set up to
advertise their mission efforts — was it Somalia?China?Senegal?And I thought to myself,
Why are these people sending evangelists
halfway around the world when the most crucial mission territory is right
outside their doors? To use a
Lincolnism, it’s like letting out the front of the house when the back of the
house is on fire.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Is there a real “wage gap” problem?Like so many other human issues, the answer
is both “no” and “yes”.

The wage gap argument centers around the long-standing
factoid that women make about three-quarters as much money as do men (in the
third quarter of 2012, it was about 82.7%).There is some variance according to race, with black women leading at
93.2%, Hispanic women at 87.5%, white women at 83.4% and Asian women at 73.1%. Moreover, this disparity seems to hold across
the various categories of jobs, whether we speak of “Management, professional
and related occupations” (72.9%) or of “Transportation and material moving
occupations” (76.5%).[1]

The best that can be said about the BLS statistics is that,
if they don’t give us apples-to-apples comparisons, they at least give us fruit
to fruit, root vegetable to root vegetable.Nevertheless, for social science purposes, they’re more like meat saws
and butcher’s cleavers than the precision instruments we want for exploratory
surgery.(Sorry for the mixed
metaphors.)

Going apples-to-apples paints a different picture.According to Diana Furchtgott-Roth, senior
fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, “if the male
counterparts are in the same job with the same experience,” women actually make
about 95 cents on the male dollar.[2]Also, men who work full-time average about
8.3 hours a day, while women average about 7.21 hours — about 13.1% less;[3]
even in salaried occupations, the person who puts more time in at the office
will be paid more.Carrie Lukas, writing
in the Wall Street Journal, noted
that this difference alone accounts for more than one-third of the wage gap.[4]

Friday, November 2, 2012

Originally published on October 10, 2011, I may find myself re-posting this reflection every year or so. Not because it's so gosh-darn well-written or witty, but to remind myself that those who won't be polite to others should not expect politeness for themselves.

* * *

On October 1 on The Impractical Catholic
I posted the news out of Rockford, Illinois that the state Department
of Public Health had suspended the license of the Northern Illinois
Women’s Center, an abortion mill most notable for the anti-Catholic
antics of its owner and employees, and now established as completely
uncaring of their patients’ health. After making some grimly celebratory
remarks, especially on how access is far more important to the hard-core pro-aborts than is women’s health, I added a YouTube clip of Queen’s video “Another One Bites the Dust”.

The only comment I got was this piece of whiny snottiness:

I find it quite ironic that you use a song that was written and performed [by] a *gasp* HOMOSEXUAL to celebrate this.

Why do I even waste my time, we all know you are going to keep on trying to keep others down ....

I
no longer make any attempts to prove I’m a nice guy with plenty of
friends both straight and gay, conservative and liberal, Catholic and
non-Catholic. For one thing, people like “Poosy” don’t listen, don’t
care, and won’t believe me anyway. For another, it reminds me too much
of the old Jewish joke about anti-Semites: “Some of my best friends are
Jews.” So of course “Poosy” finds it ironic: in the cramped, angry
little box of her ideology, I’m not allowed to have gay friends or to
appreciate good music performed by homosexuals because it would detract
from my all-encompassing homophobia.

Search This Blog

Blegging Bowl

Buy Tony a cup of coffee!

Disclaimer

This site is not an official organ of the Holy Catholic Church.The opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the author, and are not to be construed to express the opinions of the Holy See or the Dioceses of Fort Worth and Dallas. Doctrinal discussions should be considered authoritative only so far as the relevant official documents of the Catholic Church are quoted; any errors of interpretation or explanation are the author's alone, and I would appreciate correction.

Also, as this is a personal blog, the opinions I express are not those of my employers, their clients, their vendors, or any other affiliate.

Feedjit

Networked Blogs

Intense Debate Comments

ShareThis

NOTICE

Effective 12/21/2011, Outside the Asylumoperates under the Welborn Protocol: All communications, including e-mail and comments, are considered open for use as material for future posts. If you wish to submit a private e-mail, please put "DO NOT POST" in either the subject line or the message body. Please refer to the Comment Policy page for further guidelines on comments.